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In reality culture fit means "do I like you or not?". To get disqualified on culture fit, all you need is one single interviewer that will not feel %100 comfort

In reality culture fit means "do I like you or not?". To get disqualified on culture fit, all you need is one single interviewer that will not feel %100 comfortable working with you. You can get discriminated on anything really, if you seem smarter than the interviewer, if the interviewer is having a bad day, your voice, the way you look, your laugh, etc. In other words, it's nearly impossible to figure out the exact reason why you'd get disqualified on "culture fit". It's in the interviewer's brain only. He or she will obviously never share the real reason why. Sometimes it's not even explainable on paper, it's just a personal feeling, you haven't connected with the candidate for no particular reason. So you can't write an official feedback based on culture fit. Interviewers will never share their personal tastes because it doesn't seem professional. That's why 'we' use algorithm questions :) Speaking of "technical" questions - the good news is that there's absolutely no difference between Junior and Senior dev nowadays. Questions are identical so you can learn it once and re-apply for life. Everything you've learned in college is what will get you a job, even 10 years down the road so forget about your professional experience. Majority of interviewers have no skills interviewing candidates. They apply the same evaluation whether you're a tech lead or fresh out of school. If you happen to have 10 years of experience or at least one project on your Resume, they might fill up the blanks by asking you a few questions about your previous projects. But the goal is to jump straight into the basic CS questions (algo) because this leads to a YES or NO answer. That's what interviewers use to make a decision and let you go to the next round or not. You can't fail answering questions like "tell me about your project XYZ, what was difficult, how did you solve it". Though if you can't reverse a linked list because you forgot to google it prior to the interview, you will get disqualified right away since it gives the interviewer a solid feedback to write down that will never get challenged by the hiring manager. To answer your question - what I just wrote is what frustrates me the most in the recruiting process in the Software world. I've been dealing with this thing for years... as an interviewer and interviewee. Things are getting worse in 2017 because I see 500 applicants per job. You get disqualified on questions like "do you use a new line for curly braces?". The trick is to not answer right away and to return the question back to the interviewer - "good question, what do YOU use?". Then just say "me too"... safe bet.

ardivekar 10y ago
This really is true. During an interview I gave in college, I was rejected because of 'culture fit', because I tried to explain my solution to the interviewer but he wasn't bothered to understand it. My friend (who later got hired) told me that he said that while I was technically capable, I had 'an attitude problem'. Not saying I wasn't at fault, but it does matter because interviewers are human too, and like working with people they enjoy spending time with.
Clubber 10y ago
>Speaking of "technical" questions - the good news is that there's absolutely no difference between Junior and Senior dev nowadays. Questions are identical so you can learn it once and re-apply for life. Everything you've learned in college is what will get you a job, even 10 years down the road so forget about your professional experience. That isn't even close to true. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Could you elaborate on this a bit? >You can't fail answering questions like "tell me about your project XYZ, what was difficult, how did you solve it". This is the most important question I ask, and you can absolutely fail it. I use it to gauge interest in the field. If people give me a ho-hum answer, I know they are in the field because they heard it paid well and will probably have no incentive or drive for excellence. Even passionate introverts will perk up when this question is asked. I can't overstate how important passion is to future personal development. On a side note, I haven't had to deal with a recruiter (for my employment) since 2001 (dot bomb) and that didn't even help me. I used a recruiter for my first and second job and haven't since (in 20 years). If you do good work, people will remember you when time goes by and your co-workers are at a new location looking for talent. I think you are sharing your perspective from large companies. Small and mid sized companies are often more competent in interviewing (and fun to work for) because they aren't shackled by some pre-determined interview "process."
- bsvalley 10y ago
  I agree with what you said even though it seems a bit outdated. I made a general statement looking at the evolution from 2005 until today. I switched employers many times, worked for small, medium and large companies. I got to interview a lot of candidates for the last 10 years collaborating with other colleagues to make hiring decisions. I'm aware there are exceptions out there, totally agree with you! Though, it changed since 2005. It seems that most of the tech companies are now following the google model by putting CS principles at the center of the technical screening. It doesn't matter if you applied for a Web, Mobile, Backend position, if you're a junior, senior, staff, etc. You'll have to go through it and it's usually a 30 minute question within a 45 min to 1h interview. So I call it the main technical evaluation for engineers. Versus a 2 minute question going over the technology you used and how you tackled some of your challenges. I personally dig into those questions but most of the interviewers don't want to hear about anything else rather than their own voices. They need to make a "valid" decision at the end of the day so they better get a solid justification. Like I said, it's easier for them to ask YES/NO type of questions rather than engaging in a design discussion for 30 minutes. Some do but most don't. Right now the market is saturated by people applying everywhere at the same time. Some recruiters get handed multiple choice questions and get involved in the filtering right up front. If you use a referral these days you still have to go through the standard hiring process, again, there are exceptions. I got hired by an ex-collegue from another company a few years back, where he got promoted to manager. We worked together, coded together and were both engineers at our previous employer. He had an open req in his team and contacted me personally. I still had to go through the standard hiring process and crack a few algorithm questions with other engineers. He bumped up my rank though to the max when he hired me, which is where the referral boost came into place. Not during the hiring process, I was just a regular candidate for other engineers. Anyway, back to your points, algorithm questions are the main topic of conversation during tech interviews in 2017, minus the exceptions. It all comes down to writing code on a whiteboard or in a notepad. When I say code I mean palindrome, dykstra, doubly linked list and all this crap. I say that because it's the hardest problem you can ask to a candidate with or without experience. People know you'd feel comfortable talking about app optimization, scaling an infrastructure, common problems in a multi threaded system, etc. They use it for architect positions where they know the person won't write a line of code. There's just a big misunderstanding because interviewers aren't trained to evaluate candidates. They'd rather go for the generalist route and hire the "smartest" algorithm guru over someone who has a deeper knowledge of the field.

ardivekar 10y ago

This really is true. During an interview I gave in college, I was rejected because of 'culture fit', because I tried to explain my solution to the interviewer but he wasn't bothered to understand it. My friend (who later got hired) told me that he said that while I was technically capable, I had 'an attitude problem'. Not saying I wasn't at fault, but it does matter because interviewers are human too, and like working with people they enjoy spending time with.

Clubber 10y ago

>Speaking of "technical" questions - the good news is that there's absolutely no difference between Junior and Senior dev nowadays. Questions are identical so you can learn it once and re-apply for life. Everything you've learned in college is what will get you a job, even 10 years down the road so forget about your professional experience. That isn't even close to true. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. Could you elaborate on this a bit? >You can't fail answering questions like "tell me about your project XYZ, what was difficult, how did you solve it". This is the most important question I ask, and you can absolutely fail it. I use it to gauge interest in the field. If people give me a ho-hum answer, I know they are in the field because they heard it paid well and will probably have no incentive or drive for excellence. Even passionate introverts will perk up when this question is asked. I can't overstate how important passion is to future personal development. On a side note, I haven't had to deal with a recruiter (for my employment) since 2001 (dot bomb) and that didn't even help me. I used a recruiter for my first and second job and haven't since (in 20 years). If you do good work, people will remember you when time goes by and your co-workers are at a new location looking for talent. I think you are sharing your perspective from large companies. Small and mid sized companies are often more competent in interviewing (and fun to work for) because they aren't shackled by some pre-determined interview "process."

bsvalley 10y ago
I agree with what you said even though it seems a bit outdated. I made a general statement looking at the evolution from 2005 until today. I switched employers many times, worked for small, medium and large companies. I got to interview a lot of candidates for the last 10 years collaborating with other colleagues to make hiring decisions. I'm aware there are exceptions out there, totally agree with you! Though, it changed since 2005. It seems that most of the tech companies are now following the google model by putting CS principles at the center of the technical screening. It doesn't matter if you applied for a Web, Mobile, Backend position, if you're a junior, senior, staff, etc. You'll have to go through it and it's usually a 30 minute question within a 45 min to 1h interview. So I call it the main technical evaluation for engineers. Versus a 2 minute question going over the technology you used and how you tackled some of your challenges. I personally dig into those questions but most of the interviewers don't want to hear about anything else rather than their own voices. They need to make a "valid" decision at the end of the day so they better get a solid justification. Like I said, it's easier for them to ask YES/NO type of questions rather than engaging in a design discussion for 30 minutes. Some do but most don't. Right now the market is saturated by people applying everywhere at the same time. Some recruiters get handed multiple choice questions and get involved in the filtering right up front. If you use a referral these days you still have to go through the standard hiring process, again, there are exceptions. I got hired by an ex-collegue from another company a few years back, where he got promoted to manager. We worked together, coded together and were both engineers at our previous employer. He had an open req in his team and contacted me personally. I still had to go through the standard hiring process and crack a few algorithm questions with other engineers. He bumped up my rank though to the max when he hired me, which is where the referral boost came into place. Not during the hiring process, I was just a regular candidate for other engineers. Anyway, back to your points, algorithm questions are the main topic of conversation during tech interviews in 2017, minus the exceptions. It all comes down to writing code on a whiteboard or in a notepad. When I say code I mean palindrome, dykstra, doubly linked list and all this crap. I say that because it's the hardest problem you can ask to a candidate with or without experience. People know you'd feel comfortable talking about app optimization, scaling an infrastructure, common problems in a multi threaded system, etc. They use it for architect positions where they know the person won't write a line of code. There's just a big misunderstanding because interviewers aren't trained to evaluate candidates. They'd rather go for the generalist route and hire the "smartest" algorithm guru over someone who has a deeper knowledge of the field.